SWAT responds to report of man with gun in building at 10th and Union — UPDATE

UPDATE 2:35 PM: An armed stand-off on Capitol Hill ended peacefully Friday afternoon when a suicidal man brandishing a handgun surrendered to police after running inside a 10th and Union building. Seattle police officials said the man turned over his handgun and was taken safely into custody after two hours of talking with officers.

According to SPD, the man was having “relationship issues”, threatened to kill himself, and then brandished a gun towards several people on the street near 10th and Union. He then ran into the German Auto Repair building at around 12:30 PM where a 2-hour stand-off shut down several blocks and halted nearby construction.

Witnesses told CHS the incident began when the man pulled a gun on two other men outside the building that houses Alleged Tattoo, Eclectic Theater, Pound Gallery, and Christopher Goodwin Motorsport.

“(The gunman) was definitely acting in self-defense,” said Tara Johnston, an artist at Alleged Tattoo who watched the scene unfold through her shop’s window. “He didn’t want those guys coming near him.”

Johnston said police arrived soon after and the armed man ran into a garage adjacent to the tattoo shop that she said houses storage space and artist studios.

Brandon Look, who works at the Chicken Soup Brigade on the same block, told CHS he came upon the scene just after the man fled into the garage. He said he spoke with two men outside the building who told him there was a gunman inside, but they refused to call the police. “It was just strange,” he said.

The standoff caused several lockdowns in the vicinity, including at Mother’s Place daycare and Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences. The Seattle University campus was put on alert.

UPDATE 2:00 PM: SWAT teams surrounded the building and began trying to talk down to the suspect through a megaphone after reports of a man with a gun at the location. The man, believed to be in his 30s, told police he was feeling suicidal, said SPD spokesperson Drew Fowler. During the standoff police said they halted nearby construction as the man thought he was hearing gunshots.

Fowler told CHS the suspect was likely local and police believed he was armed inside the building during the negotiations. It’s unclear if the man brandished his handgun at a specific individual prior to running inside the building.

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Can you clarify how the word brandishing was used? I carry a Glock concealed on my hip on a regular basis. Someone out saw it as I was sitting down and 9 police officers showed up stating that someone reported that I was brandishing a firearm.
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Look, I am a gun owner, I personally am saddened by the recent events that have happened in Southern California, yesterday at SPU and beyond. Firearms are a tool. There are SEVERAL bad individuals across our nation that are using that tool to perpetuate violence. We as citizens already have no right to police protection. (This is contrary to popular belief. Look it up. If you can prove to me without a doubt that United States Citizens have a right to police protection. I will donate $100 to any positive charity of your choosing.) I do not diminish to belittle the service that these men and women offer to society that make great impacts and put themselves in harms way daily. My gun is not a problem for society. It is only a ‘problem’ for the individual that tries to harm me or my family. My life is not a gift for someone else to take. My life is a gift for me to cherish. … I truly hope for a fast and safe recovery for the innocently impacted by firearms violence across our nation.

I was there. Brandishing is not accurate. Two men walking down the sidewalk had a pistol pulled and pointed on them because they accidentally bumper into the suspect. The suspect then realized there were witnesses and he ran into the parking garage. He was not brandishing but rather threatening two people and pointing the weapon in their face.

If I ever see anyone (not uniformed police) anywhere with a gun, holstered or not, I will call 911. I’m not going to go up and ask if they have a license to carry first. I’d never forgive myself if I hesitated and someone got killed.

Feel free to call the police whenever you see anyone with a firearm. That is well within your right. I am not saying that it is not.
I am currently sitting at a cafe in Capital Hill working on a project. Got a sandwich coming, drinking some oj and gun on my hip. My firearm is of no threat to anyone around me. None what so ever. It calmly stays in the holster. My firearm does not perpetuate violence. When can we start to realize that firearms can be used to save life?

It never ceases to amaze me the linguistic gymnastics that pro-gun people use to justify their gun ownership and open/closed carry. Their denial of the serious problem we have with gun violence is really stunning. Gun owners always say they are not part of the problem and that they would only use their gun for defensive purposes. What a crock!

I was there. Brandishing is not accurate. Two men walking down the sidewalk had a pistol pulled and pointed on them because they accidentally bumper into the suspect. The suspect then realized there were witnesses and he ran into the parking garage. He was not brandishing but rather threatening two people and pointing the weapon in their face.

This nullifies Jason’s statement above–when you have so many people packing guns, it’s too easy for someone to pull a gun in a heated moment. Are some of us living in a constant state of terror, so insecure in our abilities to think and improvise in critical situations that we take the coward’s way out? I respect guns and support individual rights, but in a dense city where we never really know where the other person is coming from, do we really want to see a guy sitting down next to us at a restaurant with a gun strapped to his side?

Do you think that all gun owners carry guns as a result of terror, insecurity and/or fear? I’ve had some very questionable situations pop up around me. The first thing that I did in evaluating the situation was put my hand near my pepper spray. Not my gun. … There was a prominent youtuber that recently (3wks?) posted a video about this same thought process. It is a fallacy.
I should not that I’ve sat down in several restaurants next to people. Jacket off and gun openly displayed. Not a word.

People who carry guns in public, concealed or otherwise, are just idiots. There is no argument anyone reasonable person can make as to the need to carry a handgun in public. None. We are a doomed society when our mythical right to carry a firearm trumps our children’s rights to be alive. Every gun owner is responsible for every one of these deaths. What a country we are when 20 kindergartners are murdered and we do absolutely nothing to change our ways. Nothing. We just don’t care about our kids, that’s all there is to it. We all need to look a child in the eye and tell them to their faces, your life is less important than my right to carry a weapon anywhere I want to. Sorry.

Last I checked. I don’t have the right to carry a firearm anywhere that I want to. I cannot carry a gun in a hospital or mental care facility. I cannot carry my firearm anywhere that deals with the judicial ruling process. Nor into a bar/tavern And … If I understand correctly… Nor can I carry a firearm onto school property. … I do not violate any of those laws. How am I to blame for this violence?

Thanks Laura. Joseph, I have nothing to say to you. There is just no reasonable explanation for people to be allowed to carry guns anywhere in public. But having any reasonable conversation with a gun owner is about as pointless as arguing with a bible thumper.

Well, I sure hope that you do not feel the need to call on a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun, knife, baseball bat, fighting, or any other reason that you would call the Police for assistance. As Police Officers are people and citizens. They carry firearms on a daily basis. Yet, that is socially acceptable.. where as me a non-law enforcement officer it is not acceptable. I am NOT part of the problem. I do NOT own or carry my firearm out of fear or to incite fear.
I truly wish you the best in life. I sure hope that no violence is ever committed to you or to anyone that you know. It would be an absolute joy for me to see a world of peace and never have the need to call upon any firearm that I own or carry to assist in protecting the life of those I cherish. Which…may even be you. For I am not using my own name on this thread or conversation. … I am not part of the problem and there are many like me.

As an educated, well-trained, and responsible gun owner who has had a concealed carry permit for 30 years, I would disagree with your characterization of me as an idiot.

However, I do believe that to obtain a concealed carry permit, you should have to take a training class that documents your knowledge of the pertinent laws and ability to safely use the weapon, and the ability to secure it when it isn’t under your immediate control (i.e. a gun safe).

A call to 911 is okay if you feel threatened. Officers know about citizens right to carry and will likely have a conversation with the gun owner that will go something like this. “Nice gun sir/ ma’am , have a pleasant and safe day”. If the person is illegally carrying then it will be an interesting day for all.

Our society is ill. When the time comes to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones you will understand. If you never have to deal with it consider yourself blessed.

I’m not a gun owner or advocate, but your idealism and the way you’re blanket-statementing all people who own/carrry guns tells me that your are not a great critical thinker and are probably quite an idiot yourself.

I will be dialing 911if I see anyone who does not assist to be a police officer carrying a gun. It is not my responsibility to ascertain if you have the legal right to carry a gun. Last I checked I don’t live in the wild west, so I am sticking to my biases towards gun ownership.

All of you who dial 911 on those who choose the right to bear arms (yes, the second amendment of our constitution) just may be wasting a lot of SPD’s time when they could actually be doing something to protect you. I don’t necessarily condone what Joseph does, but clearly he is a law abiding citizen who knows how to be responsible with his firearm. Go to West Texas, and you will find a good percentage of women who carry in their purses. You don’t hear about them going on shooting sprees. I own a 9 but don’t carry it, although I could legally if I wanted to. Don’t blame those who do so responsibly, they aren’t the problem.

I am not sure where you are getting your information but there are so many ways to get a gun that robbing a house and stealing a firearm from a responsible owner is probably amongst the toughest. Nonetheless, I completely agree with you that if you are going to own one, you need to responsibly store it as well.

Bill – Johns Hopkins University center for public health found that more than 500,000 guns are stolen from private parties each year, and those are just the ones the owners bother to report as stolen. There is no mandatory reporting if your gun is stolen, either. Do you really think the gang killings etc. are with guns legally purchased by bangers that are often felons before they’re even of age? They’re operating with guns stolen from gun nuts who can’t bother to get a house alarm or who carry and leave their guns in their cars. Gun owners should have to carry insurance, just like you have to have to drive a car, so if your carelessly stored gun is used to harm someone, you are responsible. Just like if you let your car roll down the street in to traffic. The states with the highest percentage of gun ownership have firearm-related homicide rates 114% higher than states with the lowest gun ownership. Guns are used in self defense in less than 0.2% of homicides. The whole idea that you toting a gun on your belt is going to make me safer, because you might intervene and have a wild west shoot out with a bad guy at just the right moment, is insanity. You instigating and escalating an incident (Zimmerman) seems far more likely to me. I would leave any park, restaurant or other public place where someone had a gun. Frankly, it’s common sense.

I was handled between shelves with a group of people who is this man on the other side of our wall, given the stress did the people involved faced, it made my gut wretch to see the author of this article refer to as an occasional gun for hire; the irony is a little too dark considering many of the subjects that needs to be written of in the Capitol Hill area. I’m glad he wasn’t the one who wrote the article when my son was shot here, its his job at been described thusly, I’d have has trouble not visiting the Capitol Hill Times editor to discuss it.

No one else laughed to themselves when Joseph explained that once in a potentially dangerous situation he thought about what to do and instead of grabbing the gun from his holster he got his pepper spray instead? Talk about paranoid. I’m deeply sorry for him and worried that some people can’t function in society without feeling like at any moment they might need to rescue someone or save themselves from some extremely rare life threatening incident. Especially in a city like Seattle that’s extremely safe. We’re not talking about a favela in Brazil or the Gaza Strip, we’re talking about a dude getting coffee on Capitol Hill!

It’s as ridiculous to me as someone swimming in the ocean only when confined to a protective shark cage. Sure, people die in traumatic and frightening ways, but it’s not common to get eaten by a shark. Just like it’s uncommon that a random stranger is going to point a gun in your face, or worse yet, actually use it. Movies must be making people paranoid. Jaws made millions of people afraid of the ocean and movies are sensationalizing guns and making people think they’re somehow a target for random, extreme, and rare acts of violence.

Similar to other crimes like rape or even robbery, most are committed against people who are connected somehow. Family members, neighbors, classmates, work colleagues, etc. I don’t hang out with people who own guns and I would never visit someone’s house if they informed me they owned guns.

What boggles my mind about the gun issue is that people are terrified of situations that are extremely, EXTREMELY rare. You have a gun to protect your family so that a masked gunman can’t break in and steal your TV and your laptop? It’s more likely that someone ‘breaking’ into your home is your teenager sneaking in late at night and not an actual crazed gunman. And let’s just say it were a gunman, the chances they want to harm you are even LESS likely. They have a gun to protect themselves so they can have the upper hand in a situation and make sure they leave your home with valuables they can exchange or sell on the streets. Bringing a second gun into that situation only intensifies things and greatly increases the odds that someone will get shot and/or killed. OVER MATERIAL GOODS. And what if it were a mistake and you shoot into the dark and discover that you just shot your kid? Because that also happens a few times a year and I couldn’t live with myself for making such a terrible mistake. Most home invasions also happen during the day when people are at work anyway. But if someone wants to point a gun and me and make demands, I’ll calmly do what I can do meet them. You want my car keys? Cool… I have insurance. You want all my jewelry? Sure, it can be replaced. But the likelihood that some masked intruder wants to kidnap me or kill my family is so beyond rare that I can sleep well at night knowing I don’t have to carry a gun *just in case* that happens. Protect yourself with your fucking brain. Install a home alarm system, remember to lock doors, be aware of your surroundings, avoid walking alone at odd hours of the night, etc. It’s hysterical to me that Americans are so afraid of everything. We live in a fantastic country! I spent years of my life living in Central Mexico and never had any scary run ins. And I know lots of people who have been mugged or robbed, yet people in Mexico aren’t armed to the teeth.

I would be absolutely terrified to see someone in a cafe like Joseph with a gun on their hip. I would be frozen with fear because who’s to know what that gun is for and why you have it? I would be just as scared to see a gun on your hip (as a presumably “good guy”) as I would to see a “bad guy” with a gun. How am I supposed to know the difference?

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